


Anxiety Isn’t The Word For This

by Runesandruination



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, How Do I Tag, M/M, all the feels, anxiety sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22826068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runesandruination/pseuds/Runesandruination
Summary: Wolfe tries to deal with an anxiety attack, not very successfully. Santi tries to deal with Wolfe, rather more effectively.
Relationships: Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Anxiety Isn’t The Word For This

Something was wrong. That was the only way Christopher could describe it, had described it before to Nic when he’d asked earlier on in this so called “recovery”. It was a sinister, creeping feeling, raising the hair on the back of his neck and sending his heart racing. His chest ached like he was trying to breathe with the weight of a Sphinx automaton on sitting on it. Neck and shoulders burned from the tension coiled in the muscles there, making everything else in his damaged body complain. Something, somewhere was horribly wrong but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was and thus he couldn’t fix it or try to prevent the whatever it was. He was tied to the metaphorical train tracks, helpless, and could only see the light bearing down on him in the distance.

Logically, he knew there wasn’t anything to be jumping at. Nic had confirmed it and when he couldn’t trust his own brain, he could usually trust his partner’s. It was sunny outside. There was a bird somewhere just beyond the window, perhaps in the garden, chattering intermittently. Traffic passed their door, rumbling down the road, and people walked on by conversing in indistinct voices and languages. There was no expectant hush, no feeling of impending disaster, no calm before the storm. At least, there wasn’t to Nic. To Chris, there was all of that and more.

Something -wrong days were worse than something- not- right days, as he’d learned over the past few months of rebuilding. On something- not- right days, Chris would be a little irritable, or more so than usual, the world feeling shifted just a few degrees to the left. Bothersome, vexing even, like reaching for a glass only to realize it’s further away than you thought, or like finding one shoe but missing the other. The world out to get you in petty, ridiculous ways. But several quiet hours reading or meditating, or if he was really lucky, hours in bed with Nic usually fixed the problem forthwith.

Something-wrong days were an entirely different breed of creature. It was a pervasive, inescapable feeling of helpless despair that left him frozen in terror if he was unlucky enough to be alone when it hit (thank all the gods that he no longer cared about for Nic and his near constant presence these last months). That hollow, bottomed-out feeling in your stomach when you miss a stair and drop unexpectedly, scrambling for something to latch onto, only on these days there’s nothing to grab and you miss the next stair too, and the next, and it never ends. The Medica Nic had trusted to look him over (when Chris could stand the sight of a stranger in their house again) bandied about words like “trauma” and “stress reactions” and “anxiety”. Privately, Chris thought the man was full of shit; anxiety was a poor fucking word to describe the mess of tangled feelings on the something-wrong days.

Vainly, and knowing it was futile as he did it, the Scholar tried to turn the something-wrong day into the more manageable not-right kind. He walked through their house checking their security measures like a child with a touch stone, warding off the demons if he could just get the ritual right. Front door, triple locked, frame reinforced so it would be more than just difficult to kick down. Gun in the table by the door, magazine right beside it. Knife sheathed between the wall and the back of the bookcase. Windows locked shut, glass reinforced to be shatter resistant to nothing less than a high caliber round. Second gun under the coffee table. Flash and smoke grenades under the kitchen sink. Garrote wire in the bathroom cupboard (not that he would have nearly enough strength to use it effectively, especially with his twisted, still healing hands). Two more guns in the bedside night stands, one in each of them. Sleep had been impossible in those first few days until Santi put them there and then for a while only possible in he fell asleep with it wrapped in his grip. Come mornings (or mid-night awakenings from nightmares, whichever came first), it was always back in its drawer courtesy of Niccolo’s paranoia about letting him sleep with a loaded gun in his hand. More than once, the nightmares had been enough to disassociate him from reality and he was grateful after the return of sanity that he hadn’t had it to hand or he would shot one or the other or both of them in his confused terror.

Into the study, a set of throwing knives disguised as styluses in the holder on the desk. When his hands had healed enough to hold them, Chris had practiced with them almost manically under Santi’s intense supervision. More than once, the captain had had to pry the things out of his cramped hands when he lost the thread and had sat down in the middle of the floor, staring blankly at nothing. There was an as yet unrepaired hole in the wall where he hadn’t heard his lover come up to the door one day and simply reacted before he looked to the feel of a presence there. Santi’s reflexes averted a disaster with not even a scratch but Chris had frozen in horror, then crumpled to the floor weeping in shame, frustration, and guilt. It had taken the better part of the day to recover from that incident.

Back door was triple locked just the same as the front, same reinforced construction. Nic had silently, methodically turned their house into as much of a fortress as either of them could stand to make it; Chris was fairly certain there were other measures the military man had wanted to put in place before Chris put his foot down, growling about refusing to give into his own irrational fears. But on days like today, where the house and Nic’s arms felt like the only safe places left in the world, he was grateful for all the extra efforts.

From the couch in the living room, Niccolo Santi sat quiet and reserved, furtively watching his lover make his methodical sweep through their house. He had been pretending to read, even turning pages to keep up the pretense because Chris was exactly aware enough and prickly enough in moods like this to snap at him for his “useless, overweening mother henning!” but he couldn’t have said a single word of what was in the book he held. His heart ached. Months had passed since Chris had returned home and still the other man couldn’t trust the safety that surrounded him. Aburame, the Medica of Santi’s Company who had checked Chris over, had warned him that there would be days like this. “Trauma of this degree leaves more than just the physical scars Captain, as you well know,” the slighter Japanese man had said, softly and soothing to avoid drawing Chris’ attention from where he had dozed in the recliner. Not so soft as to be secretive and whispering, for that would surely set off alarms in Chris’ fragile awareness, but not so loud as to be easily overheard either. “You’ve seen it in soldiers. We call it ‘shell-shock,’” the man continued with a disdainful sniff to indicate his opinion of the term, “as if that remotely covers the complex syndrome of something like this. Based on what I’ve observed just now, Scholar Wolfe has been living in an extreme state of hyperawareness for months. Living in such a state for a prolonged period of time fundamentally changes how the brain perceives and reacts to stimuli. You are going to need to be extremely careful for a while; his reflexes are hair triggered into fight or flight mode and when he gets into a panic, he may not be able to distinguish between friend and foe or imagination and reality. He will hurt you to defend himself without even meaning to and I expect that if that happens, when reality sets back in and he realizes what he’s done, it will crush him.” Santi had nodded numbly, more than half of what the Medica was saying going over his head, his gaze continuously re-orienting toward his drowsing partner before he dragged it back to the man more immediately in front of him.

“Physically, you’ve done all you can. Your training served you well, sir, I’m not sure I would have done any better with the splints and bandages than you did,” Aburame continued, a softer note in his voice. It was obvious to anyone looking how out of control the Captain felt and for a man used to routines and order, it was taking a toll. The Medica studied him as he spoke, wondering if he was going to end up with two patients in this household. “Keep changing them, keep it all clean, and most of that will be finished healing by the end of this month. The hands, though, will need some care once the bones have mended; there are older breaks in there that may not have healed quite right. Strength will be some time in returning, once they’re healed I’ll set him some exercises to do to help build it back up.”

Aburame cast a long look at the broken man in the chair across the room. Even as he watched, a shudder ran through the emaciated frame and his eyes darted behind his closed eyelids. Not for all the world did the Medica want to know what he was remembering, yet he feared knowing would be necessary by the end if they were to be of any true help. He turned back to find the Captain doing the same, jaw clenched so tight the tendons stood out in his jaw. “Sir, if I may,” he began, before abruptly trailing off as his Captain swung back to face him. There was hell in the taller man’s eyes, his face white with fury and grief. The aura of impotent rage pouring off of him was enough to make the Medica, fifteen years a veteran in some of the worst of the Library’s battles, almost lose his nerve and step back. He was not too proud to admit that the man before him made him fear death in that moment. Despite his best professional face, some of that must have shown in his expression because Santi froze for a moment before dropping his gaze, blowing out a heavy breath toward the floor. One hand came up and he rubbed it over his face before looking back up. There was a rueful grin on his lips, even a glimmer in his eyes. “Apologies, Aburame. My thoughts got away from me.” It was by far the most flawless facade the Medica had ever seen, and he made a living out of working on liars who routinely tried to return to duty before they were medically cleared. He almost believed it. Almost. “You were saying?”

“I was about to tell you more about the signs of things you should watch for in the Scholar’s mental health but as you know most of them already, I’m certain, I’ve changed my mind and I’m going to ask you instead, when is the last time you talked to someone about what’s happened?” For a moment, complete incomprehension on Santi’s face. Aburame was sympathetic, it was a rather abrupt change, but the few extra seconds it took for him to catch on told Aburame exactly how focused he’d been on the Scholar and likely how much he’d been neglecting himself. It was a rather proportional amount, he suspected, which did not bode well at all. “And if you so much as think the words ‘I’m fine,’ sir, I will tranq both you and your partner into next week,” he warned, seeing a familiar look in the Captain’s eye. May all the minor gods damn these insufferable martyrs! 

Santi’s face darkened, then quirked, and suddenly the man was laughing, quietly of course, but laughing all the same. They both politely pretended not to notice how it flirted with the edge of hysteria and the tears that were quickly wiped away before they could truly fall. When it abated somewhat, Aburame none too gently towed his Captain to a chair at their dining table by the upper arm and sat him down; the proud man would not thank him for kid gloves, he knew. It was something he and his partner shared, pride they had in spades. Or at least, Chris used to; the Medica wasn’t sure anymore about that. He fetched a glass of water from the tap as the Captain composed himself, then stared him straight in the eye when he said, “You cannot do that in front of Christopher, sir. And I think you know that?” A weary nod. “And yet, you cannot keep that dragon locked up inside you either. Either you let it out or it will chew its way through you and come out anyway. Now, I don’t care who you speak to. Zara would fall on her sword before she betrayed your confidence about something this serious, but I understand you may not want a subordinate in such a position to see you like this.” It was the kindest he could be about Santi’s lieutenant; there was no love lost between the Medica and the woman, something he and Chris had once shared privately where Santi couldn't hear them. “Talk to Medica, find a counselor, hell, talk to me, but do not keep this wrapped so tightly to yourself that it ends up strangling you. Do you understand, sir?” he asked, gently rapping the table with his knuckles for attention. Santi managed to look up from where his hands had twisted in his lap and nodded, just once. Aburame softened again. “Christopher needs you, Niccolo. Without you, I’m not certain that what survives over there would ever bear resemblance to the man we knew. If he has any chance at recovering, it will be with you helping him, and you cannot do that if you are lost to your own hell, sir.”

Santi looked up, a wan smile on his face. “Very inspirational, Aburame, just the right blend of guilt-tripping and heartfelt concern. Well done.” But they both knew it had worked and the Japanese man no longer felt like there was a sword hanging over all their heads in this room.

“One does one’s best. Sir,” he said with a theatrical sniff.

Back in the present with all things checked and the routine completed, Santi watched as Wolfe picked up a Blank and sat down on the opposite end of the couch. Chris scanned the text of the page, then did it a second time, feeling his agitation grow when he realized he couldn’t even tell what the language was, much less the subject matter what with the faint, nerve-shattering sound of screaming in the back of his mind. Slamming the Blank back on the table, he whirled to his feet and stalked into the kitchen, throwing together a sandwich before stomping outside to the garden, dignity just barely winning out over peevishness about slamming the door behind him. He took a seat on the bench, trying to focus solely on the feel of the hot sunlight on his face, hoping it would banish the memories of the cold and dank darkness, the nameless fear shivering up his spine. It worked for perhaps a minute; he closed his eyes and tilted his face up, dragging his breathing into some semblance of control, watching as the world turned red behind his closed eyes. Mechanically, he began to force down small bites of the sandwich he’d made. Appetite was an unpredictable companion these days; most times he ate just because Nic reminded him. The Medica (and shouldn’t he remember the man’s name? They’d known each other before he’d been…) had said that he’d starved for so long that it would take time to relearn what hunger felt like so he could act on the feeling as needed. It was just one more thing he’d lost, one more thing he’d have to relearn how to do and who the fuck forgot what hunger felt like? The knowledge made the self-loathing worse than ever and it wasn’t long before things spiralled down even faster. Half a minute after that  
and the heat of the sun began to remind him of an entirely different kind of heat, one that had left scars. The sandwich he’d been trying to eat turned to a choking gob of ashes in his mouth and he spat it into their laughable excuse for a garden before it turned to retching. Disgusted, knowing it was useless to try and continue when his throat felt this tight, he threw the rest of it into the far corner for critters to scavenge. At least something would make use of it.

A lukewarm shower, very carefully neither too hot or too cold (a concession that had him snarling internally at the stupid mess that was his own brain these days) was the next attempt at a useful distraction and it also worked for a time, dragging him into his skin with the familiarity of a routine to follow. Shampoo the hair, soap and scrub (don’t look at the scars, don’t look down at the scars), conditioner in the hair, wait for a moment and let the water work on your neck muscles, rinse, and done. Grab the towel (wrap up in it, don’t be naked, naked is vulnerable, too much skin to protect, don’t look at the scars), dry off. The familiarity was grounding, step to step to step, as simple and as routine as the automatic check through the house’s security. Another touchstone to rub his fingers over. It stopped working though when he accidentally caught sight of himself in the mirror. A flash of pale skin in the corner of his eye and he was turning inexorably toward the mirror. Knowing he shouldn’t but with the inevitability of watching a carriage crash happening right in front of you, Christopher studied what remained of his body in the polished mirror that he had just recently told Nic he could uncover again, after it having spent months draped with a dark cloth to avoid exactly this problem. He had been rather proud of being able to lie convincingly enough again to get Nic to believe him about it, too.

Scars, so many scars, crossed and cut over much of his skin, especially on his chest. His back, he knew from Santi’s extremely reluctant description, was a horrid mess of burns, whip marks, and acid drips. He’d not seen it for himself, and he had no doubt that Nic had spared much of the true horror of it, but he dimly remembered the look of gray disbelief on Nic’s face the night he came home. For a soldier of his caliber to be that profoundly disturbed by what he saw… it didn’t bode well.

Chris’ eyes snagged on a particularly jagged line along the bottom left of his rib cage. It had been a knife, not too keenly sharpened, and Wolfe had been long past the point of controlling himself to minimize the damage. He had screamed and jerked and writhed trying to evade the hot agony scraping along his rib cage, thus the jagged appearance. Staring at it was enough to throw him back into the fire lit dungeon, cold on his naked skin except for the blood running down from the myriad of cuts. Agony everywhere, so overwhelming his body could only parse it as one all-encompassing pain. His torturer talking in such a mild, dead voice as his screams bounced and echoed back from the stone walls.

Christopher slammed to his knees by the toilet and promptly threw up what little he’d managed to swallow of his lunch in the garden.

“Easy, love,” Niccolo Santi murmured, crouching down beside him. With the ease of practiced familiarity, he raked his hands through his lover’s wet hair, effortlessly tying it off with the band left on the sink counter. While Christopher had been lost in his restless attempts to quiet his mind, Niccolo had quietly trailed him to the bathroom, half resigned to this conclusion to the morning’s failed attempts at regaining control. He knew the signs by now, the restless energy like a thick smoke in the room, the wide eyes, the fidgety behavior. It was even odds whether Chris would accept his presence on days like this; half the time he was a shivering wreck balled up in Santi’s arms in their bed, the other half he was fiercely, violently independent, shouting at Niccolo to leave him alone. Aburame had supported Chris’ independence, stating that he did need time and space to first decide what he wanted, and then follow through and ask for it. It hurt like a knife to the stomach each time to watch when all Nic wanted to do was hold his floundering, flailing lover until things eased, but he knew that that was no way to bring back the proud, fiercely driven man he’d fallen in love with. 

Discretion being the better part of valor, Nic had compromised and watched and waited until he knew Christopher would be okay with his attention. He laid a warm hand now on Christopher’s forehead as the latter heaved again, coughing and gagging; with the other, he dragged over another towel, wrapping it around Chris’ shoulders, already beginning to shiver with reaction and the clammy cold that came with this kind of sickness. “I’ve got you. You’re safe, you’re here with me. This is our house, you’re in our bathroom. I’ve got you.” Chris was crying now too as he vomited, tears of helpless frustration; Niccolo carefully wiped them away.

He continued the soft, rhythmic murmur, grounding Wolfe with his presence and his voice, using them both to drag his lover back to the present, out of the memories he could see playing behind the other man’s eyes. He was breathing fast, almost gasping now, slumped on the toilet. Nic carefully wiped his face when he was done heaving, turning him towards him as he did. Wolfe’s pupils were dilated, the gaze several yards too far off behind Santi to really be present in the moment. His shivering was growing worse, both from the anxiety and from the cold setting in on his damp skin. Santi bit back an oath. 

“Christopher. Christopher, look at me,” Santi ordered, cupping his hand along Wolfe’s face and turning him more directly toward him. Dark eyes flickered to his and away again just as fast. “Chris, you’re starting to hypeperventilate. Come on, come back to me love. I’m right here with you.” He stroked his thumb over the too-prominent cheekbone, hoping the touch would help sort out the sensations in Christopher’s confused body. He’d said once that it helped sometimes to do that; no one in the prison had touched him that way so it wasn’t easy to confuse the sensation with other, less pleasant memories. Sure enough, Chris’ eyes found Santi’s again and held the gaze longer. “You’re safe. You’re home. We’re alone here and I swear to both our gods that if someone tries to enter this house without our permission, they will be dead before they put a boot across the threshold,” Niccolo said fiercely, meaning every word of it. He didn’t care if it was the Magister himself; he would kill half of Alexandria before he let Wolfe be taken again. He freed a hand and placed the gun he’d holstered at his hip on his way to the bathroom on the floor where Chris could see it, in easy arm’s reach. 

The words helped, Santi could see that almost immediately, as the did weapon. In the absence of knowing what fear had turned Chris inside out this time, Nic usually opted to treat the one underlying all the rest, the fear of being captured and taken back to the cells. Rarely was that gambit ever the wrong move. He might not know the specifics of what happened, Christopher professed time and time again that he didn’t remember except in flashes and pieces, but he knew that fear of being taken back, that all of this now was a cruel mind-fuck, was what drove the Scholar up to the edge of sanity. If Santi could allay that fear, even for a moment, the rest tended to recede, too.

Wolfe’s next breath was a hair slower, a touch deeper than the last. His eyes locked on Santi’s and his hand came up to grip the wrist of the hand touching his face with a desperate, shaking strength. Nic let the small smile of relief show on his face. “I’m here, Chris. Right here with you. Now you need to breathe with me. Give me your other hand?” At times like this, Nic had learned to ask permission and telegraph movements before making them; such a simple thing as moving too fast could set the whole episode off again. He had learned that the hard way early on; it was a memory he didn’t care to think about. Wolfe lifted his other hand, shaking just as badly as the rest of him, and Santi cradled it in his and drew it to his chest, laying over his heart.

“I love you. I have always and will always love you. Yes, even like this,” he stated, seeing the sarcastic, disparaging remark Chris wanted to make but didn’t have the breath for yet floating in the depths of his eyes. “You’re not broken. You’re healing. Every day you get a little stronger, if nothing else than for the sheer spite of living when they wanted you to die.” Santi rolled his eyes, playing it up just a bit, and Chris gave a painful sounding gasp of a laugh. But his breathing was far slower now and the shaking had subsided to intermittent trembling. Chris still didn’t look away from Santi’s eyes, though. The Scholar had grudgingly confided that fear too, that if he looked away, Santi would vanish, a trick of his imagination. Santi hadn’t let him out of his sight for the entire 24 hour period following that confession and Chris had been helplessly, pathetically grateful.

Niccolo swept his thumb over the sharp cheekbone one more time, still watching the haunted eyes before him. Too much bloody practice had taught him that those were where he might see the first signs of disengagement. Currently, there was still a shadow there but Chris was mostly present, as much as he ever was on days like this. Gently, Santi took the towels and began chafing him dry; Wolfe submitted to it with a sigh, lips pinching. “Yes, I am mother henning now as you like to call it, yes, I am aware I’m doing it, and no, I’m not going to stop until we’re both back in bed because in my book, this day is crap and I’m about ready to be done with it.”

“No more than I am,” Chris muttered, resenting just about everything in that moment. “And its not even an hour past lunch.”

“Like we keep such nice, regular hours now,” Santi retorted, gently pulling the hair tie free again and beginning to work on drying Chris’ hair. “Three squares a day, eight hours of shut eye every night, we’re regular paragons of healthy living, we are.” Despite himself, Chris snorted. The idea of a solid eight hours of unbroken sleep was laughable these days, for both of them. Nic had some sort of internal alarm set that woke him now whenever Chris started getting fitful; he slept through the night no more often that Chris did, no matter how much Chris protested it wasn’t necessary. The thinner man sat back on his heels, nausea at bearable levels, and lifted a barely trembling hand to continue toweling his head. Santi let him go until Chris looked up at him from one eye, the other half of his face obscured by the folds of the towel. It was absurdly childlike and Nic fought back a smile that would likely get him punched right now. “Cute” was not a descriptive Wolfe ever suffered lightly. But he couldn’t resist tracing his cheek with a finger, one more time.

“Nic, I’m-“ Wolfe started.

“No.”

“...No?” Chris repeated, lifting an eyebrow. Santi raised one right back, dropping his hand.

“I know what you’re trying to say, and I don’t want to hear it.” Chris’ lips pinched again, eyes darkening. Santi ignored the signs of temper, even as he was glad to see them return. 

“You don’t understand.”

“The hell I don’t,” Santi replied mildly. “You’re having a bad day. You want to apologize because you think it’s ruining mine. You think you’re bothering me-“

“You came to hold my hair back while I threw up in the toilet! Again!” Chris snapped back, flushing in embarrassment, ashamed of his tone even as the words leapt out of him.

“And I’ll do it each and every single time,” Nic replied, exactly as unruffled as before the outburst. “You think you’re a burden on me-“

“Because I bloody well am!”

“And you’re defensive because you’re afraid that one day, I’m going to, and I quote, ‘wise up and leave you.’” Chris stilled. That part was achingly, terrifyingly true. He’d said as much, once and only once, soon after he’d returned home and realized exactly how far he’d fallen and how long it would take to regain even a semblance of the man he used to be.

“You should,” he said hoarsely, staring wide-eyed at the tile floor to keep the new wave of tears from falling. He was so gods damned tired of crying. “Nic, you know better than anyone how badly off I am, how much damage I’m carrying. It’s not ever going to go away. You’ll be stuck with me like this for the rest of your life. It is a hell not of our making and only one of us needs to suffer this. It isn’t you.”

“Don’t you dare act like what happened was something you deserved. You won’t tell me what it was about, that’s fine, but I have seen war criminals treated with more humanity than you were!” Chris was flinching back at the heat in his tone even as a matching anger rose in his eyes. In another second, they’d be shouting at each other and while that was one way to catharsis, it typically left more damage than it solved. Santi got a death grip on his temper and imagined throttling til it died gasping in his grip. Not a peaceful image but it helped cool the rage a bit. “Chris, mi amore, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. But I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand,” Nic said softly. He picked up one of Chris’ limp hands from where they rested on his thighs, tracing each finger, each tendon, each bone. A sigh shuddered out of Wolfe. “I love you. I will say it as many times as I need to until you actually hear me. I love you. I love you who you are right now. I love the man you were before all this happened, and I’ll love the one who comes out on the other side, whoever he may be, because he’s you. I don’t believe you’ll be ‘stuck like this’ as you say because you’re not even the same man who crawled, bloody and mute, up our front steps that terrible night! Even if you were, you’re mine, Christopher Wolfe. And I’m yours, for as long as you’ll have me. I won’t leave you, not now, not ever. The night is darkest before the dawn, my love, you know that; I can already see the sun on the horizon even if you can’t, yet.”

Silence held in the bathroom for a time. Santi kept quietly tracing his fingers over the delicate skin of Wolfe’s hand, wrist, and forearm, giving him time to process. Chris’ face was shadowed by the towel still but he could practically feel the other man arguing with himself. Finally, Chris turned his hand over, threading his fingers through Nic’s and gripping tightly enough Nic knew he was hurting himself, knitting tissues and bones still achy and weak. Chris let out one trembling breath before he said, “You’re a sentimental sap, you know that?” A sardonic eye peered up at him from under the towel, but the facade wasn’t good enough to hide the small hope lingering in his dark eyes. Santi huffed a quiet laugh and rolled to his feet before reaching down to lift Wolfe to his. The cold tile, the stress, and the subsequent relief had left him weak, enough that Nic kept an arm around his waist to support him. He was mildly surprised but exceedingly pleased when Chris leaned into the embrace. Pressing a kiss into the dark hair, he murmured, “I’ll take that to mean ‘I love you too, dear Nic.’”

Chris wound his arms around Nic’s waist, leaning his head against the broad shoulder. “I love you too, my dear Niccolo.”

**Author's Note:**

> A shout out to everyone living with this particular kind of struggle. I hope you all find your own Niccolo Santi someday.
> 
> All errors are my own.


End file.
